A Venezuelan archaeological team has discovered 20 rock art sites dating back thousands of years in Canaima National Park, in the southeast of the country.
While archaeologists have discovered similar rock art drawings elsewhere in South America, this discovered art “represents a new culture that in the past was unknown,” José Miguel Pérez-Gómez, an archaeologist and researcher at Simón Bolívar University in Caracas, who is leading the team, told WordsSideKick. com in an email.
Some of those designs, which the researchers call “pictographs,” were drawn in red and depict geometric patterns such as dotted lines, rows of X’s, star-shaped patterns, and direct lines that join together to form a variety of patterns. There are also representations of leaves and drawings of stick dolls. In addition, some images, called petroglyphs, were etched into the rock and also show a variety of geometric patterns.
We don’t know why other people created this art. ” It’s almost to get into the minds of other people who lived all those years ago,” Perez-Gomez said, but “these symptoms really had ritual significance. “The depictions can be similar to birth, disease, nature renewal, or intelligent hunting. The places where the rock art was created “probably had meaning and importance in the landscape, just as churches have meaning for other people today,” Perez added.
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Although the age of rock art is not known precisely, rock art in Brazil dates back about 4,000 years. However, Pérez-Gómez believes that the examples from Venezuela may be older.
Canaima National Park is a huge park, spanning Belgium, encompassing forests and mountainous terrain. One of its most notable features is Angel Falls, the highest land waterfall in the world. The park would possibly have been “ground zero” where this mysterious culture first developed, Pérez-Gómez said, before later dispersing to places as far away as the Amazon River, the Guianas and even southern Colombia, which has rock art until recently. discovered. Examples in Venezuela.
Remains of pottery and stone equipment were also found at all 20 rock art sites and possibly would have been used by other people who created the rock art, but more studies need to be done to be sure, Perez-Gomez said. In addition, more rock art sites will most likely be discovered in Canaima National Park as studies continue, he noted.
The studies presented at the prehistoric archaeology congress “New Worlds New Ideas” held in Valcamonica, Italy, from June 26 to 29. Article about one of the rock art sites published in November 2023 in the journal Rock Art Research.
Owen Jarus is a regular contributor to Live Science who writes about archaeology and humanity’s past. He has written for The Independent (UK), The Canadian Press (CP) and The Associated Press (AP), among others. Owen holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Toronto and a diploma in Journalism from Ryerson University.
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